World's most prominent startup accelerator
Y Combinator (YC) is the world's leading startup accelerator, running twice-yearly cohorts where it invests $500K for 7% equity. YC alumni include Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Reddit, and Coinbase. A YC batch acceptance is one of the most competitive filters in startups.
Stripe went through YC in 2010. The founders credit YC's network and advice for helping them navigate early banking partnerships — the hardest part of building a payments company.